People ask me why I haven’t posted for a while.
They assume I’m too busy. But that’s not it.
Too busy should never be a justification.
Busy is a decision.
Busy is a cop-out.
“Too” busy just means you don’t know what you want to do.
Yet.
So you (try to) do everything.
…
No - I haven’t been too busy.
Truth is, I haven’t posted in a while because I have had nothing to say.
Nothing to say because I got hooked.
- on junk.
The junk that is the world we live in, and specifically - how we consume it:
- The titles, and not the abstracts.
- The sensational headlines, and not the boring stories.
- The tweets, and not the articles.
- The blogs, and not the books.
- The notifications, and not the essays.
Repetition over education.
Where everyone speaks, but no one listens.
All mouths.
No ears.
Where what feels good is more important than what’s true.
Junk - we find out - is a way of life.
- It is all consuming
- It is our new reality
- It is stealing our time
And - if we’re not careful - it’ll steal it all.
From right under our noses, as we watch it do it.
But there’s an antidote:
DEATH
Yes - DEATH.
Or - at least the acceptance of it;
the acceptance that life is just an elaborate journey to nowhere.
And an acceptance that the only way we can live with this absurdity is because we have the ability to ask WHY.
Why the junk?
Why time-wasting?
Why are we participating in this absurdity?
“Why” is our way out of the mess that is this world right now.
Because if we do not ask why, then what’s the point in living?
Even if our answers are unsatisfactory, it is the act of asking the question that gives us purpose.
It maybe doesn’t make sense of the absurdity that is a president Trumpty Dumpty, for example -
but it is in asking the question that brings us closer to our own truth;
The truth that is the constant, and unending, invention, reinvention, interpretation, and reinterpretation of ourselves throughout our lives.
The understanding that we are always a work in progress,
- shaped by that which we focus on.
Because neuroplasticity occurs whether we like it or not.
Our brain is literally changing every moment of our lives.
How we focus our attention - what we focus our attention on,
… is what our life becomes.
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives” - Dillard
…
The question is: “how will we spend our days?”
What will we choose to do?
What will we read?
Who will we listen to?
“If I spend the remainder of my life doing this, would it be meaningful?”
In 2018, I will work through this PROCESS a little differently.
Rather than reacting to the world around me, I will engage more proactively,
- With what I read,
- With how I read it.
- With how I communicate,
- With who I communicate.
Each week, I will share my own efforts at finding my own truth:
The WHY:
the PROCESS.
The negotiation with uncertainty …
because life is complicated,
- and complex.
And only by admitting to this -
Nay - not the admission; but the acceptance of this;
In fact - only by embracing this uncertainty,
can we hope to find where our own truth lies.
There are no short-cuts;
we have to play the long-game.